World Class Research

As the largest private funder of pancreatic cancer research, we are relentlessly focused on improving patient outcomes and we are making progress every day. Thanks to separate funding to support administrative expenses, 100 percent of every donation goes directly to research.

Navigating Pancreatic Cancer

We are here to empower you to ask bold questions, seek out the best treatment options, and face the unique challenges of pancreatic cancer head-on. We want to give you the resources and information you need to make informed decisions that are best for you.

As overwhelming as a pancreatic cancer diagnosis is, it is important to act quickly and put a treatment plan into place. Treatment should ideally begin within one month after you receive your diagnosis. Understand your disease. Thoroughly understand what stage of pancreatic cancer you have and inquire about having your blood and tumor genetically sequenced. […]

If you have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a clinical trial may be your best treatment option. Many clinical trials are underway for patients in all stages of the disease and may involve new combinations of currently available drugs or new drugs that have worked in other cancers. No matter where you are in your journey, we encourage you to learn more about clinical trials.

LET’S WIN! Pancreatic Cancer A Dynamic Way to Share Information Recognizing that there is an urgent need for patients to communicate amongst themselves and with the medical community about potentially life-changing treatments and clinical trials, we are proud to be affiliated with Let’s Win. Let’s Win is an interactive online community where patients and families […]

Pancreatic Cancer Connections is online social community that provides a safe space for pancreatic cancer patients and their loved ones to share their experiences, get valuable coping resources, and support one another. Patients interact with others who are facing a pancreatic cancer and can post questions to the board or message other members privately. This community forum is a valuable resource for patients, caregivers, and their loved ones to refer to at various stages of their treatment and recovery.

Patients and loved ones can sign up for Pancreatic Cancer Connections at no cost and will be welcomed into an engaging and supportive community to discuss topics including treatment options, nutrition, and coping with the disease. Pancreatic Cancer Connections is hosted by Inspire, a leading healthcare social network that connects more than 1,000,000 patients and caregivers.

Lustgarten News

Hope For Pancreatic Cancer Treatments

After multiple Emmy award-winning “Jeopardy!” host, Alex Trebek, announced that he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer, the news has drawn attention to the disease and raised questions related to the latest advances in diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Aaron Sasson, director of the Pancreatic Cancer Center at Stony Brook University and chief of the Surgical Oncology Division, said little has changed when it comes to a doctor’s ability to diagnose the cancer any earlier.

“But we have made improvements in imaging of pancreatic cancer,” he said. “That is, the quality of CT scans and MRIs has improved over the years.”

Kerri Kaplan, president and CEO of the Lustgarten Foundation, said the disease has been “notoriously difficult” to detect and treat. The organization is dedicated to pancreatic cancer research.

“Although great strides are being made to detect pancreatic cancer earlier, this disease has few warning signs and vague symptoms that may range from back pain, fatigue and loss of appetite, amongst others,” she said in an email.

Kaplan added, “Even when there are early signs and symptoms, they may easily be attributed to other illnesses. Because of this, patients are often diagnosed when the cancer is at an advanced stage or has spread to other organs — making them ineligible to undergo surgery, which is the best chance at long-term survival.”

I love you, Mom:A Living Tribute

As told by Stacy Waldman Bass

Receive a copy of the e-book

In partnership with the Lustgarten Foundation, donors who contribute $75 or more to the I love you, Mom initiative will receive an e-book version of this book as an acknowledgment of your contribution to this worthy cause and in gratitude of your kindness and support of my project and my mom. A link to download your copy will be emailed beginning on Mother’s Day.

When I began this project, my hopes for it were somewhat modest, but important. I shared images from my mother’s life on Facebook — tiny slices of her then almost 74 years as a daughter, a summer camper, a counselor, a student, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend, a teacher, a philanthropist, a passionate theatregoer, and a lover of language (to name only a few). I had hoped to create a living and breathing portrait, one that would both delight and remind my mom of the wonderful life she had lived and the range of people she had impacted and influenced. I also had hoped that in sharing these images, each day from February 1, 2018—one month after her diagnosis of metastatic pancreatic cancer— until January 13, 2019, the day following her woefully untimely death, I could somehow create and fuel a community of supporters to nurture those memories and to engage my mom in an online conversation that could buoy her spirits and positively occupy her time. I set out to harness the immediacy, range, and force of social media for good. And it worked.

There were moments along the way when I began to believe that the swelling force of the movement that formed around her over the year could somehow change the course of her prognosis or, at the very least, extend her time. I think she believed that, too. The love and positivity that flooded in her direction, from near and far, from “likes” and “loves” to comments and questions, was so empowering and transformative that maybe, just maybe, it could work. The digital conversation quickly spilled offline and my mother was supported in ways unimaginable by many she knew and loved and many more that she did not.

When I started the project, my mom asked how long I thought I might do it and in those first terrifying days, I was honestly thinking “for as long as you live”–fearing the accelerated pace of the cancer—but wanting so much to be optimistic, I instead said “for a year. Let’s start with that.” And in that one instant, a goal was born. Let’s make it a year. One year. Please, at least one year.

Every day, my mom woke up looking for “her” post: curious and excited to see what image I’d chosen and what I might write about it; eagerly anticipating the interest and engagement of the community; enthusiastically responsive to questions and comments. And true to form, while she might call me to gratefully acknowledge a particular post or to clarify my query about a date or time, she also never hesitated to point out an errant typo or mischaracterization which I would then quickly remedy.

This living tribute changed things. Her thinking shifted. As did mine. Through the process, and my intense absorption in it, I had the chance to fall in love with my mom anew. I grew to see her as a whole person, a complete and multifaceted woman who was my mother, but also so much more. It gave me a more refined appreciation for the nuances of her life, the choices she made, the challenges she faced. I saw strength where before I’d seen only softness. Layers and layers of lovely that I may have taken for granted, now shone through.

I spent a fair amount of time daydreaming that when she reached that milestone one-year mark, I would make a book of the accumulated posts. It would be a gift for her, a small but beautiful treasure, to have and to hold. I thought that together, we could celebrate the victory of both the medicine and memories and marvel at the extraordinary community that blossomed around her. That part was not to be.

This story, like far too many stories of cancer, did not have a happy ending. And though most days still, this plain fact is unbearably and heartbreakingly sad, I nonetheless still found myself wanting or needing to make that book; and to find a way to redirect the gift that was intended for my mom to others who are still fighting, and who could still prevail. And so, this book, in honor and in memory of my extraordinary mom, Jessica Friedman Waldman, is now a mission and one that I believe is a critical one: to help fund groundbreaking, life-changing research to defeat cancer, and in particular the pancreatic cancer that took her from us. In partnership with the Lustgarten Foundation, the leading-edge pancreatic cancer research group, and its collaboration with Stand Up To Cancer, donors to the I love you, Mom initiative will receive an e-book version of this book as an acknowledgment of their contribution to this worthy cause and in gratitude of your kindness and support of my project and my mom.

What follows is a slightly curated version of this almost year-long project. I hope that in reading it, you will not only learn about my mother or my journey or my loss but that, like so many who followed along, day by day, you will be similarly inspired: to be grateful for and expressive about the relationships in your life—with your own mother, or daughter, or sister or friend; to mindfully nurture and attend to those relationships and to cherish the simplicity and beauty of the everyday.

View Some of the Heartfelt Facebook Posts

Since the first of the year, we have been trying to digest the sobering news that my spectacular, beautiful, amazing mom has pancreatic cancer. Each new test or procedure has created new obstacles and staggering complexities and with them, growing anxiety, sadness, anger, depression. The feeling of being unable to do anything meaningful to make a difference is excruciating, numbing. Last night, as I lay awake, again in tears, I tried to figure out some positive affirmation that I could do or offer every day— to will her to the other side of this terrifying disease; to inspire her to beat the odds, crush the statistics, to survive and thrive.

And so, I’ve decided that each day, I will share a picture of my mom— to breathe new life into moments past and to celebrate how much she is loved; to build strength and to fortify a community of support, for her. While many of the photos I will share aren’t mine (and the photographer is unknown)—since photography is my meditation, my prayer, my gift and my offering…maybe sharing these images IS what I can do. While medicine does what it can.

Facebook, like all social media, has flaws but one unequivocal strength is connectedness. I am not sharing this to elicit comments or empathy but instead, in hopes that whatever good, whatever power, whatever positivity it puts out into the universe will find its way back to my Mom, and exponentially so. And she will feel that love.

3.28.18 I love you Mom ❤ and HAPPY HAPPY 74th BIRTHDAY!
Any pictorial retrospective about you would incomplete without this AMAZING image. I don’t remember when I first saw it….but I remember clearly that it was that moment that I was able to acknowledge that my mom was ALSO this incredible, surprisingly bold, playful, quietly confident and spectacular WOMAN. And it made me both very proud and even a little jealous. Gutsy move. Maybe Dad wasn’t the adventurous one after all.

10.31.18 I love you Mom ❤
52 years ago today, you were finishing up 19 hours of labor and so hoping I’d arrive just before Halloween. Alas, I wasn’t in much of a rush and truly, despite countless jokes about “trick or treat” or wearing my “birthday suit” to a costume party, having a birthday on Halloween has been mostly an embarrassment of riches — presents, candy and cake all in one delirious sugar-soaked day. I confess it’s not the happiest birthday for me today— focused instead on your health and supporting you in every way I can. Nonetheless, I am ever grateful for that hard work you did all of those years ago, and every day since to be the very BEST mom this little pumpkin could ever ask for.

11.1.18 I love you Mom ❤
And love how you “showed up” for all of us yesterday — with such strength and such spirit. Highlight of my birthday was seeing you like this — bright, beautiful and buoyant. Not giving up. Not broken by this cancer. THAT, and the perfectly executed version of Granny’s Mac and Cheese, a visit from Michael and so many astoundingly loving and kind messages, cards and gifts made it a small but nonetheless happy birthday. No cake but lots of wishes…

After seeing Green Book last night, impossible to resist sharing more images from that unforgettable 1960 night — when you won a date with pop legend Bobby Darin at the Copacabana. What a lucky guy to spend the evening with 16-year old YOU. I wish I could have been there, too.

New Chief Medical Advisor

The Lustgarten Foundation announced today the appointment of Elizabeth M. Jaffee, M.D., the immediate past president of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), as its new Chief Medical Advisor. Dr. Jaffee is an internationally recognized expert in cancer immunology, with specific expertise in preclinical and early clinical development of immunotherapies for pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic Cancer News

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, or PDAC, is the third most common cause of cancer-related death in the United States, with a median 5-year survival rate of only 9%. Incidence of this cancer is rising, an effect of an aging population, improved diagnostics and the so-called “diabesity” epidemic.However, there have been several recent advances in PDAC, from […]

Bruce Toma, 69, is making plans for traveling and sprucing up his house. That’s a far cry from the fall of 2017, when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The disease and chemo left him in terrible shape. “I was violently sick, I was losing weight terribly. And what I would eat, I couldn’t keep […]

This year in America, some 56,770 people will be stricken with pancreatic cancer — and 45,750 people will die from it. Those estimates from the American Cancer Society (ACS) paint a grim portrait of the disease, which researchers have pegged as the fourth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the country. Pancreatic cancer, which affects a […]

Alex Trebek, the longtime host of “Jeopardy!,” appeared on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday for a frank interview about his experience with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, including his struggle with depression during chemotherapy. “My oncologist tells me I am doing well, even though I don’t always feel it,” Mr. Trebek said on the ABC morning […]

The action of a gene called ATDC is required for the development of pancreatic cancer, a new study finds. The work builds on the theory that many cancers arise when adult cells — to resupply cells lost to injury and inflammation — switch back into more “primitive,” high-growth cell types, like those that drive fetal […]

Before being tested in animals or humans, most cancer drugs are evaluated in tumor cells grown in a lab dish. However, in recent years, there has been a growing realization that the environment in which these cells are grown does not accurately mimic the natural environment of a tumor, and that this discrepancy could produce […]

For some cancers, initial treatment with chemotherapy brings positive, but only temporary, results: tumors shrink, but then rebound as the cancer becomes drug-resistant. This pattern of remission-resistance-relapse is particularly true for pancreatic cancer, an aggressive disease in which early success is often countered by eventual disease progression. To wit: The one-year relative survival rate for […]

A new study from the Mayo Clinic found that a pre-surgery treatment plan may help extend life for advanced pancreatic cancer patients. According to Mayo researchers, most pancreatic cancer patients whose tumors grow outside the pancreas and encompass veins and arteries have been told the cancer is inoperable and they should prepare for an average survival time of 12 to 18 months. […]

Switching pancreatic cancer patients to the PARP inhibitor rucaparib as maintenance therapy instead of continuing intensive chemotherapy either shrunk tumors or stopped them from growing in 17 of 19 patients in an interim analysis from a trial at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The results are from a study evaluating this […]

Need another reason to stay slim? People who are overweight have a greater risk of dying from pancreatic cancer, especially those who are carrying extra pounds before age 50, a new study suggests. “No matter what the age, there was some increase in pancreatic cancer deaths associated with excess weight. But the association was stronger […]